Timeline

Doctors Without Borders teams are working hard across the world and have already saved millions of lives in 2016.

Currently, we are working across Europe to help refugees fleeing war, persecution and poverty. Our teams are responding across Yemen to provide lifesaving care to people affected by the conflict, as are our teams in places like Syria, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Iraq.

If you would like to find out more about our work in one of the 67 countries we are currently responding to, visit our where we work page.

To find out more about our work since our founding in 1971 use the timeline below by jumping to a decade:

2010-present

2016

EU-Turkey Deal

In a historic move in June, Doctors Without Borders refuses EU funding as protest against shambolic policy towards refugees and migrants.

Conflict in Syria and Yemen

The catastrophic conflicts in Syria and Yemen continue. Throughout 2016, attacks on civilians, hospitals, medical facilities and healthcare workers became sadly commonplace. In May, world leaders at the UN unanimously condemned these acts, but they continued unabated.

KARAM ALMASRI/MSF

A hospital in east Aleppo is reinforced with sandbags after it was hit by airstrikes in April 2016, killing one doctor and injuring several nurses.

Borno crisis, Nigeria

Between April and July, thousands of children starve to death in Borno state, Nigeria, many beyond the reach of aid agencies. Doctors Without Borders speaks out about the situation and calls on the authorities and international community to urgently tackle the problem of widespread hunger, which is exacerbated by displacement and the fight against Boko Haram rebels in the region.

2015

Kunduz attack

In the small hours of Saturday, 3 October 2015, our emergency trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, is repeatedly bombed by Coalition forces. Forty-two people are killed: 24 patients and 14 MSF staff, along with four patient caretakers.

Sea Rescue

At the start of May, Doctors Without Borders and Migrant Offshore Aid Station launch into the Mediterranean Sea on the MY Phoenix, a ship fully equipped with a medical clinic, to provide care for migrants attempting the perilous journey to reach Europe.

Conflict in Ukraine

In mid-January, fighting in eastern Ukraine escalates to a level not seen since the peak of the conflict in the summer of 2014.

Doctors Without Borders provides basic healthcare and medicines to people on both sides of the frontline, as well as psychological support.

2014

MSF ADDRESSES UN SECURITY COUNCIL

In September, Jackson Naimah – a Doctors Without Borders physicians’ assistant from Liberia – gives an unprecedented speech to the UN Security Council saying that Doctors Without Borders has reached its limits and cannot continue to respond alone to the Ebola epidemic. He appeals for international help.

Later that month, Doctors Without Borders announces it will host three treatment trials for the virus in its centres in West Africa.

Morgana Wingard

Jackson Niamah, Liberian Physician's Assistant at Doctors Without Borders' Ebola Management Centre in Monrovia, addresses UN security council members in New York, who later unanimously vote through an emergency resolution on the Ebola outbreak.

restart of work in Myanmar

In December, Doctors Without Borders restarts basic medical activities in parts of Rakhine, Myanmar, after a nine month absence.

In the first month after restarting, we carry out 3,480 outpatient consultations.

Launch of the Missing Maps project

November sees the launch of the Missing Maps project – a collaboration between Doctors Without Borders, the British and American Red Cross, and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team – which aims to map the most vulnerable places in the developing world so that individuals and organisations can use maps and data to better respond to crises.

Ebola “out of control”

In June, Doctors Without Borders declares the second wave of the outbreak as "totally out of control" and calls for a massive influx of resources and reinforcements to be sent to West Africa.

Doctors Without Borders goes on to open 15 Ebola management and transit centres, caring for more than 5,000 patients. Fourteen of our staff staff and hundreds of other health workers lose their lives to Ebola.

Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos

Doctors Without Borders Ebola Treatment Centre in Kailahun, Sierra Leone. Two medical staff are admitting a weak patient who has been in contact with people infected with Ebola.

Response begins to unprecedented Ebola epidemic

In March, Doctors Without Borders begins responding in Guinea to what it describes as ‘an unprecedented Ebola epidemic’ due to the geographical spread of the virus.

The World Health Organisation states that we are exaggerating.

operations halted in Myanmar

In March, Doctors Without Borders is ordered by the Government of Myanmar to halt its work after some officials accuse us of favouring the Muslim Rohingya ethnic group over Rakhine Buddhists.

Doctors Without Borders is forced to close operations in Rakhine, depriving nearly 750,000 people – mostly Rohingya – of medical care.

2013

Civil war in South Sudan

Doctors Without Borders ramps up operations after wide-scale conflict engulfs South Sudan in December.

In April 2014, we severely criticize United Nations peacekeeping operations for a ‘shameful indifference’ to the squalid living conditions of 21,000 displaced people in Juba.

Typhoon Haiyan devastates the Philippines

Doctors Without Borders begins responding to Typhoon Haiyan shortly after it makes landfall on 8 November.

Doctors Without Borders provides care for emergency and everyday health problems in hospitals and mobile clinics, delivers clean water and helps to repair sewerage systems and health centres in some of the worst affected areas.

MSF

A girl looks at the destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan in Liberty, a town on Leyte Island, one of the places most affected by the storm.

Chaos in Central African Republic

In October, Doctors Without Borders remains one of the few international medical organisations in Central African Republic responding to the increasing violence which has plunged the country into chaos.

Report of toxic nerve agents in Syria

In August, Doctors Without Borders reports that more than 3,000 patients showing symptoms of exposure to toxic nerve agents are received at medical centres near the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack near Damascus.

Launch of the TB Manifesto

In March, people living with drug-resistant tuberculosis, with the help of Doctors Without Borders staff, call for new drugs to treat multidrug-resistant TB. They call for the drugs to make treatment much shorter, more effective and less toxic.

More than 55,000 people sign the manifesto.

withdrawal from Somalia

In August, Doctors Without Borders closes all of its programmes in Somalia after 22 years of operations.

The decision comes after a long series of threats, kidnappings, extremely violent attacks on staff, and murders.

helping people fleeing Mali

With tensions simmering in Mali, the French military intervenes to suppress an Islamist uprising in January.

Doctors Without Borders continues its emergency medical work across Mali and assists people who have fled the conflict to neighbouring countries.

2012

responding to Syrian conflict

In July, Doctors Without Borders begins to run medical programmes inside Syria, although without authorisation from the Syrian government.

Doctors Without Borders initially sets up three field hospitals in the north of the country. One of the hospitals, located in a cave, would later be bombed after the MSF team leaves for more secure surroundings.

Nicole Tung

A patient is examined by Doctors Without Borders anesthetist Hans Gerber before undergoing surgery to remove a bullet lodged in his abdomen at our clinic in Northern Syria, on Thursday, January 31, 2013.

Refugee influx causes crisis in South Sudan

Doctors Without Borders warns of dire medical consequences as tens of thousands of new refugees cross from Sudan into South Sudan, finding refugee camps full and unable to provide the basic life-sustaining essentials.

The situation in Upper Nile and Unity States rapidly develops into a full-blown crisis as water supplies begin to run out and relief is wholly insufficient.

117,000 people vaccinated against cholera in Guinea

Doctors Without Borders vaccinates 117,000 people against cholera in the region of Boffa, 150km north of Conakry, the Guinean capital.

This is the first time that people in Africa were protected during a cholera outbreak by a two-dose oral vaccine.

2011

doctors without borders condemns attack on aid workers in Somalia

Two Doctors Without Borders colleagues, Phillipe Havet and Andrias Karel Keiluhuo, were killed by a gunman while implementing emergency assistance projects in Mogadishu.

Peter Casaer/MSF

Security is and has always been a major concern for teams working in Somalia. It remains the only place where Doctors Without Borders employs armed guards for its protection.

Withdrawal from Thailand after 35 years

After months of negotiations and discussions with Thai authorities, it proves impossible to get permission to provide healthcare to undocumented migrants and vulnerable populations in Thailand that we believe are most in need of medical assistance.

working with psychologists in aftermath of Japanese quake

Doctors Without Borders supports a team of six psychologists who treat survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit northeast Japan on March 11th.

Providing urgent medical care in Libya

Doctors Without Borders finally manages to deliver medicines and medical supplies to Sirte, Libya, at the heart of the fighting.

For ten days, we attempt to deliver aid to Sirte where, according to doctors in the town, the healthcare situation had continued to deteriorate.

2010

Earthquake in Haiti

After a massive earthquake hits Haiti on January 12th, Doctors Without Borders launches one of its largest ever interventions, expanding its projects in the country from three to a high of 26.

We treat more than 173,757 patients, and performs more than 11,748 surgeries in the five months that follow the disaster.

Doctors without borders and VII launch ''Starved For Attention''

Doctors Without Borders and the VII photo agency launch the "Starved For Attention" multimedia campaign on global malnutrition.

The ongoing exhibition, which has already been staged in the US, Europe, and Africa, highlights the often overlooked global scourge of malnutrition, its lethal impact on children in particular, and some innovative practices employed by Doctors Without Borders and others to combat it.

Flooding submerges Pakistan

Doctors Without Borders responds to massive floods in Pakistan by expanding existing programmes and establishing new ones in areas the organisation hadn’t worked previously.

By December, teams had tended to more than 80,000 patients and distributed nearly 2 million litres of clean water, along with almost 65,000 relief kits.

Cholera strikes Haiti

In October, after cholera hits Haiti, Doctors Without Borders mobilises hundreds of staff members to respond, eventually opening more than 50 cholera treatment centres across the country, launching widespread public education campaigns, and tending to more than 100,000 patients - more than 60 percent of all cases in the country - in the months that followed.

2000-2009

2009

Conflict in Gaza

Doctors Without Borders supports hospitals in Gaza following an Israeli offensive launched to counter militants firing crude rockets into Israel.

After a ceasefire is announced, Doctors Without Borders opens a surgical hospital and also offers post-operative and psychological care.

Bruno Stevens

A child is treated for second-degree burns suffered as a result of artillery bombardment. Gaza City, Jan. 27, 2009.

Doctors without borders re-opens programmes in Afghanistan

Following a five year absence (see 2004), Doctors Without Borders returns to the country and begins supporting hospitals in Kabul and in Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand Province.

A difficult year in Sudan

Doctors Without Borders launches emergency interventions in the south in response to escalating violence and outbreaks.

In Darfur, the government expels two sections and four staff members are kidnapped.

Some projects are therefore closed, but Doctors Without Borders nonetheless provides nearly 129,000 consultations and support numerous local health centers.

2008

Political unrest in Kenya displaces thousands

Doctors Without Borders treats wounded civilians in the shanty towns of the capital, Nairobi, and assists displaced Kenyans in makeshift camps who flee to the west of the country after disputed presidential elections lead to widespread violence.

NUTRITIONAL CRISIS IN ETHIOPIA

Doctors Without Borders treats more than 72,000 malnourished children as a massive nutritional crisis sweeps the south of the country as a result of drought, poor harvests, and soaring food prices.

Fighting cholera in Zimbabwe

After a cholera outbreak started in August, Doctors Without Borders treats more than 65,000 people suffering from the disease over the next 10 months while also supporting government-run facilities with supplies, staff incentive payments, and treatment programmes.

Joanna Stavropoulou

Doctors Without Borders has constructed 30 "elephant" pumps in two areas near the capital city of Harare, Zimbabwe, in order to provide clean, potable water.

Violence escalates against civilians in DRC

Doctors Without Borders runs mobile clinics, surgical programmes, nutritional programmes, and provides treatment and counselling for victims of sexual violence as thousands of Congolese in North Kivu flee increased and repeated attacks on their villages by armed groups.

Cyclone hits Myanmar

Doctors Without Borders staff already working in the country provide assistance to thousands of people displaced by the cyclone while the government stalls on allowing additional staff to enter the country.

2007

A new treatment for malaria

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis launch ASAQ, an inexpensive and easy-to-use combination pill.

ASAQ is not patented, allowing for others to produce it at lower cost.

Conflict grips Somalia

Hundreds of thousands of civilians flee the capital, Mogadishu, as the worst fighting in 15 years erupts throughout the city.

Amid great insecurity, Doctors Without Borders sets up a surgical programme in Mogadishu, provides assistance to some of those displaced, and maintains medical programmes in the rest of the country.

Rafa Carrascosa

In 2007, Doctors Without Borders started a feeding centre to treat malnourished children at camps for internally displaced persons and refugees in Bossaso, in the Puntland region of the country. The project provides nutritional attention to 7000 children under five years.

Ebola in Uganda

Doctors Without Borders teams confront an Ebola outbreak in Uganda. After carrying out a rapid assessment, MSF set up isolation units in the Kikyo health centre and the Bundibugyo hospital.

Crisis unfolds in Chad

More than 150,000 displaced people attempt to survive in makeshift camps in eastern Chad as fighting escalates between government and rebel groups.

Doctors Without Borders scales up its medical programmes and calls for a massive international humanitarian response.

2006

Measles vaccination campaign in DRC

Doctors Without Borders launch a massive measles vaccination campaign in DRC. In only a few weeks, MSF teams vaccinate 359,318 children under the age of five.

MASSIVE CHOLERA OUTBREAK IN ANGOLA

Doctors Without Borders treats 26,000 people and sends more than 400 tonnes of supplies to respond to a cholera outbreak that spreads from the capital to more than half the country.

SRI LANKA RETURNS TO WAR

As tens of thousands of people flee renewed fighting in the north of the country, Doctors Without Borders reopens surgical programmes in north and central Sri Lanka after facing a series of setbacks from the authorities.

Henk Braam

In January 2007, Doctors Without Borders opened three surgical programs in the conflict-affected regions of Point Pedro, Vavuniya and Mannar in Sri Lanka.

Surgical care for victims of war in Iraq

Unable to work safely in Iraq, Doctors Without Borders sets up a reconstructive surgical program in Amman, Jordan to treat severely war-wounded patients referred by medical colleagues in Iraq.

2005

Nutritional crisis in Niger

Doctors Without Borders begin an emergency operation to treat tens of thousands of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in various parts of Niger, opening seven in-patient centres and 27 ambulatory centres.

Earthquake hits Southeast Asia

Doctors Without Borders runs mobile clinics to reach people trapped in remote villages and sets up inflatable surgical tents to treat thousands of people injured in the massive earthquake that hit the Kashmir region of Pakistan and India.

2004

ASIAN TSUNAMI

Doctors Without Borders reacts immediately to the Asian tsunami disaster. Within 48 hours teams were working on the ground and 32 tonnes of medical, water and sanitation supplies had been dispatched. Thanks to the huge international response to the tsunami, the worst of the emergency was over by May. Doctors Without Borders felt able to ask its donors, 99 percent of whom agree, to allow it to reallocate some of the funds received to other emergency medical programmes around the world.

Christian Aslund

Abdul Muthalib, 45, a survivor of the 2004 Tsunami, surveys the devastation left in its wake. 21 January 2005 - Lamno, Aceh, Indonesia.

Meeting the emergency in Western Darfur

Doctors Without Borders open feeding centres, clinics and vaccination campaigns in western Sudan (Darfur) and Chad, where hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violence face starvation.

Afghanistan withdrawal

Doctors Without Borders pull out completely following the killing of five of its workers and the continuing threat to its teams by the Taliban.

2003

Civilians suffer in DRC

Doctors Without Borders run dozens of medical programmes for people caught in the region’s chronic conflict.

DNDi created

Doctors Without Borders is a founding partner in the new organisation The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative dedicated to developing medicines for neglected Diseases.

Heavy fighting in the Liberian Capital

Doctors Without Borders remain in Monrovia to treat victims during fierce fighting between government and rebel groups.

US INVADE IRAQ

Doctors Without Borders teams remain in Baghdad and challenge the US government on its failure to provide adequate medical care to civilians.

Geert van Kesteren

The invasion of Iraq left many civilians without adequate access to medical care.

2002

US-led Coalition invade Afghanistan

With many International staff evacuated, our programmes continue to operate led by Afghan staff.

MALARIA KILLING MILLIONS IN AFRICA

Faced with skyrocketing resistance to common anti-malarials like chloroquine, Doctors Without Borders increases its use of artemisin-based combination therapy, and push for wider availability of this effective treatment.

FAMINE IN ANGOLA

Doctors Without Borders run the largest operation in our history, with 200 international volunteers and more than 2,000 local staff working throughout the country.

Aid Workers targeted

Doctors Without Borders worker Arjan Erkel is abducted in the North Caucacus, a victim of increasing dangers faced by aid workers in conflict zones worldwide.

2001

HIV/AIDS pandemic

Doctors Without Borders start providing antiretroviral therapy to people living with AIDS in the following seven countries: Thailand, Cambodia, Cameroon, Guatemala, Kenya, Malawi, and South Africa.

Tom Stoddart/Getty

Dr. Tonia Marquardt treats a young patient at a hospital in Chiradzulu, Malawi. 2001.

1996

Meningitis in Nigeria

1995

Srebrenica Massacre

Our teams witness the fall of the UN "protected zone", and denounce the subsequent massacre of up to 10,000 civilians by Serbian troops.

War in Chechnya

Doctors Without Borders brings aid to civilians inside the republic and in refugee camps in neighbouring countries.

1994

Genocide in Rwanda

Doctors Without Borders remains in Kigali throughout the genocide of more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. We make an unprecedented decision to call for military intervention. One million Rwandan refugees arrive in the small town of Goma, Zaire. Within days, we collaborate on the biggest cholera programme to date.

Wim Van Cappellen

Rwandan refugees in a camp Burundi. In 1994, there was a large scale movement of refugees, fleeing the genocide in Rwanda, into northern Burundi.

1993-1994

War in Bosnia

Medical programmes in the region extend to the UN's supposed "protection zones" of Gorazde and Srebrenica.

1993

Civil war in Burundi

A failed coup d’état in October resulted in 750,000 refugees fleeing to neighbouring Rwanda, Tanzania and Zaire. Doctors Without Borders deploys 85 volunteers in the region but delays in the international relief effort cause widespread famine in the refugee camps.

1992

Bosnia

Doctors Without Borders denounces ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Emergency in the Horn of Africa

One hundred Doctors Without Borders volunteers work in the region affected by war, drought and displacement of populations.

1991

EMERGENCY IN KURDISTAN

Largest emergency relief operation to date. Doctors Without Borders provides care in Turkey, Iran and Jordan to Kurds displaced by the Gulf War.

John Vink/Magnum Photos

Kurdish refugees in Sayeed Sadiq, Kurdistan. February 1992

Emergency in Somalia

Doctors Without Borders represents the only foreign presence in war-stricken Mogadishu, and aids refugees in other countries.

Former Yugoslavia

The Doctors Without Borders relief convoy evacuating the wounded from Vukovar hospital comes under attack. Three of our workers are wounded.

1990

Civil war in Liberia

Our teams provide emergency care at the height of the fighting.

Afghanistan murder

An Doctors Without Borders logistician is murdered in Afghanistan. Activities suspended.

1980-1989

1989

Earthquake in Armenia

Iraq attacks Kurds. We were the first medical organisation that bore witness to the use of chemical weapons on the Kurdish town of Halabja.

Withdrawal from Sudan after an Doctors Without Borders plane is shot down by a missile, killing 4 people, including two MSF volunteers.

Roger Job

Little girl in front of ruins caused by an earthquake in Armenia December 7, 1988. A tragedy of enormous proportions, the earthquake claimed the lives of at least 60.000 people. Doctors Without Borders was one of the first international non-government organizations to respond.

1986

Civil war in Sri Lanka

Yemen intervention in Aden where fighting rages between rival factions of the ruling party.

1985

Conflict in Central America

Doctors Without Borders provides medical care in Honduras to refugees from El Salvador and Nicaragua.

MSF expelled from Ethiopia

Doctors Without Borders is expelled by the government from Ethiopia after denouncing the hijacking of humanitarian aid and the forced transfers of populations by the latter.

1984

Famine in Ethiopia

Doctors Without Borders starts programmes to treat malnutrition in hunger-stricken regions of Ethiopia.

1981

MSF hospitals bombed

Bombardments of Doctors Without Borders hospitals in Afghanistan

1980

generic MSF

Claude Malhuret, president of MSF France from 1978 to 1979, Xavier Emmanuelli, president from 1979 to 1980, and Rony Brauman, president from 1982 to 1994 take part in the 'March for the Survival of Cambodia', on the Thai border in 1980.

FIRST INTERNATIONAL APPEAL

“Walk for survival of Cambodia”, Doctors Without Borders' first international appeal, is launched in protest against the Vietnamese authorities stopping our teams from bringing aid to Cambodia.

War in Afghanistan

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in the final days of 1979, triggering a war that would last a decade, Doctors Without Borders medical teams clandestinely cross the Pakistani–Afghan border and travel by mule for several weeks to reach injured civilians living in remote areas.

First nutritional programme

In the Karamoja province of Uganda, Doctors Without Borders' first nutritional programme is launched in the midst of drought and civil war.

1971-1979

1979

split

Led by Dr Claude Malhuret and Dr Francis Charhon, Doctors Without Borders moves beyond its modus operandi of sending isolated doctors to crisis zones in favour of creating a more structured organisation that can provide quality medical services in crises.

Co-founder Dr Bernard Kouchner leaves in protest and later founds Médecins du Monde/Doctors of the World.

1978

Refugee assistance

Doctors Without Borders launches various refugee programmes in Thailand, in the Ogaden region (Djibouti, war between Ethiopia and Somalia) and in Sudan.

generic MSF

A Doctors Without Borders volunteer treats a young patient in Sudan, 1978.